County salaries

Around Missouri -- and in some other areas of the country -- many county officeholders have seen substantial cost-of-living salary increases over the past decade plus.

Seven of the 11 first-class Missouri counties without a charter government saw cumulative salary increases for county elected officials at the 60 percent level or greater between 1997 and 2010. Among the seven is Cape Girardeau County.

In 1996 when Cape Girardeau County received a first-class designation, the county salary commission -- made up of all county elected office holders except the circuit clerk -- had a one-time-only opportunity to adjust the salaries of the county's elected officials. Under the state statute, the commission was given a choice of setting salaries below a rate based on a value formula -- tied to assessed valuation -- at 100 percent of the rate, or above. The commission chose to increase salaries to the 100 percent level -- a change which increased salaries substantially for officeholders in 1997 and 1999.

Since this initial salary adjustment, Cape Girardeau County elected officials have seen their base salaries increase 68.3 percent, almost double that of the rate of inflation measured by the Consumer Price Index, with the average county officeholder salary in 2010 at over $69,000.

Commission members have been consistent by giving the same cost-of-living adjustment to county employees. However, when doing a statewide comparison and not including the prosecuting attorney and sheriff, both of whom sit on the commission but have their salaries set by a different state statute, Cape Girardeau County ranks third among all of Missouri's first-class, nonchartered counties. However, in a similar comparison of the 11 counties in the analysis, Cape Girardeau County employees receive an average compensation of $25,392.96 a year, ranking toward the bottom end of the scale for first-class, nonchartered counties.

Our biggest concern with the county's elected official salaries is not the amount being paid, but the way in which salaries are being determined. Officeholders, while sitting on the commission do, as they say, set the salary for the person who fills the position after the next election. However, many times the person setting the raise is the one who continues to fill the office, as many Cape Girardeau County officeholders stay in the same position for many years.

Another concern is the rate of increase. While Cape Girardeau County has been fortunate to do well in recent years when nationally the economic situation has been turbulent, this alone is not necessarily a justification for seemingly automatic salary raises. Between 1997 and 2009, the salary commission approved raises of 3.5 percent for officeholders. However, to the commission's credit, raises for 2010 and 2011 have been lower than in previous years with the commission deciding on a 3 percent raise for all county employees and officeholders in 2010 and a 2.5 percent raise for 2011.

Finally, when considering experience as it relates to the job, an outgoing county employee with years of experience can be replaced with a less experienced employee at a lower salary. Yet when an officeholder retires or is voted out, their replacement begins making more money than his or her predecessor.

Some officeholders may take exception to this newspaper's focus on salaries. But it is important that salaries paid by taxpayer dollars are scrutinized. In Bell City, Calif., a town of about 38,000 near Los Angeles, some public officials were discovered last year to have increased their salaries well into the six-figure range, even approaching $1 million. Cape Girardeau County and other Missouri counties are nowhere close to this marker. Nevertheless, the California episode is a warning of what could happen without appropriate review, and the history of increases in many Missouri counties suggests that some review may be lacking.

Cape Girardeau County has some excellent and upstanding elected officials, and this is not meant to question their integrity. However, in any private sector business, the workers are subject to performance reviews and their salary is determined by a supervisor. At the county level, our elected officials receive a performance evaluation every four years by the voters. If they win their election, they can continue. However, having elected officials essentially setting their future salaries, especially when incumbency plays an important role, shows a flaw in the system.